[1] _Description of England_, bk. ii. ch. v. p. 128. Henry Peacham,
in his _Compleat Gentleman_ (1634), takes this matter more seriously.
"Neither must we honour or esteem," he writes, "those ennobled, or
made gentle in blood, who by mechanic and base means have raked up a
mass of wealth ... or have purchased an ill coat (of arms) at a good
rate; no more than a player upon the stage, for wearing a lord's cast
suit: since nobility hangeth not upon the airy esteem of vulgar
opinion, but is indeed of itself essential and absolute" (Reprint, p.
3). Elsewhere (p. 161) he deplores the abuse of heraldry, which had
even in his day produced "all the world over such a medley of coats"
that, but for the commendable activity of the earls marshals, he
feared that yeomen would soon be "as rare in _England_ as they are in
_France_." See also an amusing instance from the time of Henry VIII.,
given in "The Gentility of Richard Barker," by Oswald Barron, in the
_Ancestor_, vol. ii. (July 1902).
[2] Even this classification would seem to need modifying. For
certain of the great patrician families of the cities were certainly
_nobiles_.
[3] The designation "gentilman" is, indeed, found some two centuries
earlier. In the _Inquisitio maneriorum Ecclesiae S. Pauli Londin._ of
A.D. 1222 (W.A. Hale, _Domesday of St Paul's_, Camden Soc., 1858, p.
80) occurs the entry: _Adam gentilma dim acra, p' iii. d._ This is
probably the earliest record of the "grand old name of gentleman";
but Adam, who held half an acre at a rent of three pence--less by
half than that held by "Ralph the bondsman" (Rad' le bunde) in the
same list--was certainly not a "gentleman." "Gentilman" here was a
nickname, perhaps suggested by Adam's name, and thus in some sort
anticipating the wit of the famous couplet repeated by John Ball's
rebels.
[4] The prefix "de" attached to some English names is in no sense
"nobiliary." In Latin documents _de_ was the equivalent of the
English "of," as _de la_ of "at" (so de la Pole for Atte Poole, cf.
such names as Attwood, Attwater). In English this "of" was in the
15th century dropped; e.g. the grandson of Johannes de Stoke (John of
Stoke) in a 14th-century document becomes John Stoke. In modern
times, under the influence of romanticism, the prefix "de" has been
in some cases "revived" under a misconception, e.g. "de Trafford,"
"de Hoghton." Very rarely it is correctly retained as derived from a
foreign place-name, e.g. de Grey.
GENTZ, FRIEDRICH VON (1764-1832), German publicist and statesman, was
born at Breslau on the 2nd of May 1764. His father was an official, his
mother an Ancillon, distantly related to the Prussian minister of that
name. On his father's transference to Berlin, as director of the mint,
the boy was sent to the Joachimsthal gymnasium there; his brilliant
talents, however, did not develop until later, when at the university of
Königsberg he fell under the influence of Kant. But though his intellect
was sharpened and his zeal for learning quickened by the great thinker's
influence, Kant's "categorical imperative" did not prevent him from
yielding to the taste for wine, women and high play which pursued him
through life. When in 1785 he returned to Berlin, he received the
appointment of secret secretary to the royal _Generaldirectorium_, his
talents soon gaining him promotion to the rank of councillor for war
(_Kriegsrath_). During an illness, which kept him virtuous by confining
him to his room, he studied French and English, gaining a mastery of
these languages which, at that time exceedingly rare, opened up for him
opportunities for a diplomatic career.
His interest in public affairs was, however, first aroused by the
outbreak of the French Revolution. Like most quick-witted young men, he
greeted this at first with enthusiasm; but its subsequent developments
cooled his ardour and he was converted to more conservative counsels by
Burke's _Essay on the French Revolution_, a translation of which into
German (1794) was his first literary venture. This was followed, next
year, by translations of works on the Revolution by Mallet du Pan and
Mounier, and at this time he also founded and edited a monthly journal,
the _Neue deutsche Monatsschrift_, in which for five years he wrote,
mainly on historical and political questions, maintaining the principles
of British constitutionalism against those of revolutionary France. The
knowledge he displayed of the principles and practice of finance was
especially remarkable. In 1797, at the instance of English statesmen, he
published a translation of a history of French finance by François
d'Ivernois (1757-1842), an eminent Genevese exile naturalized and
knighted in England, extracts from which he had previously given in his
journal. His literary output at this time, all inspired by a moderate
Liberalism, was astounding, and included an essay on the results of the
discovery of America, and another, written in French, on the English
financial system (_Essai sur l'état de l'administration des finances de
la Grande-Bretagne_, London, 1800). Especially noteworthy, however, was
the _Denkschrift_ or _Missive_ addressed by him to King Frederick
William III. on his accession (1797), in which, _inter alia_, he urged
upon the king the necessity for granting freedom to the press and to
commerce. For a Prussian official to venture to give uncalled-for advice
to his sovereign was a breach of propriety not calculated to increase
his chances of favour; but it gave Gentz a conspicuous position in the
public eye, which his brilliant talents and literary style enabled him
to maintain. Moreover, he was from the first aware of the probable
developments of the Revolution and of the consequences to Prussia of the
weakness and vacillations of her policy. Opposition to France was the
inspiring principle of the _Historisches Journal_ founded by him in
1799-1800, which once more held up English institutions as the model,
and became in Germany the mouthpiece of British policy towards the
revolutionary aggressions of the French republic. In 1801 he ceased the
publication of the _Journal_, because he disliked the regularity of
journalism, and issued instead, under the title _Beiträge zur
Geschichte_, &c., a series of essays on contemporary politics. The first
of these was _Über den Ursprung und Charakter des Krieges gegen die
französische Revolution_ (1801), by many regarded as Gentz's
masterpiece; another important brochure, _Von dem politischen Zustande
von Europa vor und nach der Revolution_, a criticism of Hauterive's _De
l'état de la France à la fin de l'an VIII_, appeared the same year.
This activity gained him recognition abroad and gifts of money from the
British and Austrian governments; but it made his position as an
official in Berlin impossible, for the Prussian government had no mind
to abandon its attitude of cautious neutrality. Private affairs also
combined to urge Gentz to leave the Prussian service; for, mainly
through his own fault, a separation with his wife was arranged. In May
1802, accordingly, he took leave of his wife and left with his friend
Adam Müller for Vienna. In Berlin he had been intimate with the Austrian
ambassador, Count Stadion, whose good offices procured him an
introduction to the emperor Francis. The immediate result was the title
of imperial councillor, with a yearly salary of 4000 gulden (December
6th, 1802); but it was not till 1809 that he was actively employed.
Before returning to Berlin to make arrangements for transferring himself
finally to Vienna, Gentz paid a visit to London, where he made the
acquaintance of Pitt and Granville, who were so impressed with his
talents that, in addition to large money presents, he was guaranteed an
annual pension by the British government in recognition of the value of
the services of his pen against Bonaparte. From this time forward he was
engaged in a ceaseless polemic against every fresh advance of the
Napoleonic power and pretensions; with matchless sarcasm he lashed "the
nerveless policy of the courts, which suffer indignity with
resignation"; he denounced the recognition of Napoleon's imperial title,
and drew up a manifesto of Louis XVIII. against it. The formation of the
coalition and the outbreak of war for a while raised his hopes, in spite
of his lively distrust of the competence of Austrian ministers; but the
hopes were speedily dashed by Austerlitz and its results. Gentz used his
enforced leisure to write a brilliant essay on "The relations between
England and Spain before the outbreak of war between the two powers"
(Leipzig, 1806); and shortly afterwards appeared _Fragmente aus der
neuesten Geschichte des politischen Gleichgewichts in Europa_
(translated _s.t. Fragments on the Balance of Power in Europe_, London,
1806). This latter, the last of Gentz's works as an independent
publicist, was a masterly exposé of the actual political situation, and
at the same time prophetic in its suggestions as to how this should be
retrieved: "Through Germany Europe has perished, through Germany it must
rise again." He realized that the dominance of France could only be
broken by the union of Austria and Prussia, acting in concert with Great
Britain. He watched with interest the Prussian military preparations,
and, at the invitation of Count Haugwitz, he went at the outset of the
campaign to the Prussian headquarters at Erfurt, where he drafted the
king's proclamation and his letter to Napoleon. The writer was known,
and it was in this connexion that Napoleon referred to him as "a
wretched scribe named Gentz, one of those men without honour who sell
themselves for money." In this mission Gentz had no official mandate
from the Austrian government, and whatever hopes he may have cherished
of privately influencing the situation in the direction of an alliance
between the two German powers were speedily dashed by the campaign of
Jena.
The downfall of Prussia left Austria the sole hope of Germany and of
Europe. Gentz, who from the winter of 1806 onwards divided his time
between Prague and the Bohemian watering-places, seemed to devote
himself wholly to the pleasures of society, his fascinating personality
gaining him a ready reception in those exalted circles which were to
prove of use to him later on in Vienna. But, though he published
nothing, his pen was not idle, and he was occupied with a series of
essays on the future of Austria and the best means of liberating Germany
and redressing the balance of Europe; though he himself confessed to his
friend Adam Müller (August 4th, 1806) that, in the miserable
circumstances of the time, his essay on "the principles of a general
pacification" must be taken as a "political poem."
In 1809, on the outbreak of war between Austria and France, Gentz was
for the first time actively employed by the Austrian government under
Stadion; he drafted the proclamation announcing the declaration of war
(15th of April), and during the continuance of hostilities his pen was
ceaselessly employed. But the peace of 1810 and the fall of Stadion once
more dashed his hopes, and, disillusioned and "hellishly blasé," he once
more retired to comparative inactivity at Prague. Of Metternich,
Stadion's successor, he had at the outset no high opinion, and it was
not till 1812 that there sprang up between the two men the close
relations that were to ripen into life-long friendship. But when Gentz
returned to Vienna as Metternich's adviser and henchman, he was no
longer the fiery patriot who had sympathized and corresponded with Stein
in the darkest days of German depression and in fiery periods called
upon all Europe to free itself from foreign rule. Disillusioned and
cynical, though clear-sighted as ever, he was henceforth before all
things an Austrian, more Austrian on occasion even than Metternich; as,
e.g., when, during the final stages of the campaign of 1814, he
expressed the hope that Metternich would substitute "Austria" for
"Europe" in his diplomacy and--strange advice from the old hater of
Napoleon and of France--secure an Austro-French alliance by maintaining
the husband of Marie Louise on the throne of France.
For ten years, from 1812 onward, Gentz was in closest touch with all the
great affairs of European history, the assistant, confidant, and adviser
of Metternich. He accompanied the chancellor on all his journeys; was
present at all the conferences that preceded and followed the war; no
political secrets were hidden from him; and his hand drafted all
important diplomatic documents. He was secretary to the congress of
Vienna (1814-1815) and to all the congresses and conferences that
followed, up to that of Verona (1822), and in all his vast knowledge of
men and affairs made him a power. He was under no illusion as to their
achievements; his memoir on the work of the congress of Vienna is at
once an incisive piece of criticism and a monument of his own
disillusionment. But the Liberalism of his early years was gone for
ever, and he had become reconciled to Metternich's view that, in an age
of decay, the sole function of a statesman was to "prop up mouldering
institutions." It was the hand of the author of that offensive _Missive_
to Frederick William III., on the liberty of the press, that drafted the
Carlsbad decrees; it was he who inspired the policy of repressing the
freedom of the universities; and he noted in his diary as "a day more
important than that of Leipzig" the session of the Vienna conference of
1819, in which it was decided to make the convocation of representative
assemblies in the German states impossible, by enforcing the letter of
Article XIII. of the Act of Confederation.
As to Gentz's private life there is not much to be said. He remained to
the last a man of the world, though tormented with an exaggerated terror
of death. His wife he had never seen again since their parting at
Berlin, and his relations with other women, mostly of the highest rank,
were too numerous to record. But passion tormented him to the end, and
his infatuation for Fanny Elssler, the celebrated _danseuse_, forms the
subject of some remarkable letters to his friend Rahel, the wife of
Varnhagen von Ense (1830-1831). He died on the 9th of June 1832.
Gentz has been very aptly described as a mercenary of the pen, and
assuredly no other such mercenary has ever carved out for himself a more
remarkable career. To have done so would have been impossible, in spite
of his brilliant gifts, had he been no more than the "wretched scribe"
sneered at by Napoleon. Though by birth belonging to the middle class in
a country of hide-bound aristocracy, he lived to move on equal terms in
the society of princes and statesmen; which would never have been the
case had he been notoriously "bought and sold." Yet that he was in the
habit of receiving gifts from all and sundry who hoped for his backing
is beyond dispute. He notes that at the congress of Vienna he received
22,000 florins through Talleyrand from Louis XVIII., while Castlereagh
gave him £600, accompanied by _les plus folles promesses_; and his diary
is full of such entries. Yet he never made any secret of these gifts;
Metternich was aware of them, and he never suspected Gentz of writing or
acting in consequence against his convictions. As a matter of fact, no
man was more free or outspoken in his criticism of the policy of his
employers than this apparently venal writer. These gifts and pensions
were rather in the nature of subsidies than bribes; they were the
recognition by various powers of the value of an ally whose pen had
proved itself so potent a weapon in their cause.
It is, indeed, the very impartiality and objectivity of his attitude
that make the writings of Gentz such illuminating documents for the
period of history which they cover. Allowance must of course be made for
his point of view, but less so perhaps than in the case of any other
writer so intimately concerned with the policies which he criticizes.
And, apart from their value as historical documents, Gentz's writings
are literary monuments, classical examples of nervous and luminous
German prose, or of French which is a model for diplomatic style.
A selection of Gentz's works (_Ausgewählte Schriften_) was published
by Weick in 5 vols. (1836-1838); his lesser works (Mannheim,
1838-1840) in 5 vols. and _Mémoires et lettres inédites_ (Stuttgart,
1841) were edited by G. Schlesier. Subsequently there have appeared
_Briefe an Chr. Garve_ (Breslau, 1857); correspondence
(_Briefwechsel_) with Adam Müller (Stuttgart, 1857); _Briefe an Pilat_
(2 vols., Leipzig, 1868); _Aus dem Nachlass Friedrichs von Gentz_ (2
vols.), edited by Count Anton Prokesch-Osten (Vienna, 1867); _Aus der
alten Registratur der Staats-Kanzlei: Briefe politischen Inhalts von
und an Friedrich von Gentz_, edited by C. von Klinkowström (Vienna,
1870); _Dépêches inédites du chev. de Gentz aux Hospodars de Valachie
1813-1828_ (a correspondence on current affairs commissioned by the
Austrian government), edited by Count Anton von Prokesch-Osten the
younger (3 vols., Paris, 1876), incomplete, but partly supplemented in
_Österreichs Teilnahme an den Befreiungskriegen_ (Vienna, 1887), a
collection of documents of the greatest value; _Zur Geschichte der
orientalischen Frage: Briefe aus dem Nachlass Friedrichs von Gentz_
(Vienna, 1877), edited by Count Prokesch-Osten the younger. Finally
Gentz's diaries, from 1800 to 1828, an invaluable mine of authentic
material, were edited by Varnhagen von Ense and published after his
death under the title _Tagebücher_, &c. (Leipzig, 1861; new ed., 4
vols., _ib._ 1873). Several lives of Gentz exist. The latest is by E.
Guglia, _Friedrich von Gentz_ (Vienna, 1901). (W. A. P.)
GEOCENTRIC, referred to the centre of the earth (Gr. [Greek: gê]) as an
origin; a term designating especially the co-ordinates of a heavenly
body referred to this origin.